So just what is leadership in the immigration fight?

CRAGG HINES, Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle |
April 26, 2006

NEAR the end of his mountain biking weekend in California, President Bush got back to business with an immigration speech in Orange County.

His address to a local "business council" was supposed to be an exercise in bravery because much of the southern Los Angeles suburbs is a hotbed of anti-immigrant fury not amenable to Bush's determined evenhandedness on the issue.

What Orange County actually has become is a focus of the cross-currents that swirl in the immigration debate, including its political and economic ramifications. Often the home of right-wing wackiness and once the bedrock of white-bread Republicanism, Orange County has changed in many ways. About one-third of its residents are now Hispanic, and one of its seats in the U.S. House is held by a liberal Chicana.

But never mind. Bush was determined to look fearless.

Getting to the heart of his remarks, Bush recalled that an old friend said, "People are wondering why you would come to Orange County to talk about immigration."

"(Laughter.)," the White House transcript notes. "(Nervous laughter.)," would be more like it.

"And the answer is because that's what a leader does," Bush said, giving his best Sheriff Dillon impression.

But his speechifying and generally sound instincts on the issue aside, Bush's hands-on leadership on the emotion-laden topic has been ephemeral — and intentionally so.

The White House has determined that the best use of Bush on the issue would be as a closer — wading into the legislative tall grass if (and it's a big "if") the Senate and House ever get to a conference on what almost certainly would be widely differing immigration bills.

That was the sense of Bush's role that was conveyed to a bipartisan group of senators who met with the president at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

Before the session, at least, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, picked up the political end of the immigration battle where he left it before Congress' two-week recess. "What does the president of the United States want to do?" Reid demanded.

Politics aside, that's a good question — which Republicans, too, are beginning to ask.

If a comprehensive immigration bill emerges this year, Bush's standing back now will be judged to have been a brilliant strategy; if not, then history will be less kind regarding his reluctance.

It's a strategic decision that recognizes (in ways that his bully-pulpit performance on Iraq ignores) Bush's currently discounted political capital.

But it's also a plan that leaves Bush on the sidelines of an issue for which, as a former border governor, he has a distinctive feel, in terms of politics, public policy and personal regard.

As he said in Orange County: "One thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect."

Judging by the e-mails that pour in when I write on immigration, this is not a universally held view.

Bush has spoken out properly against the "throw them all out" approach urged by some in his party.

"Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work," Bush said in California as anti-immigration protesters picketed the event. "You can hear people out there hollering it's going to work. It's not going to work."

But when it comes to saying exactly what he thinks an immigration bill should look like, Bush has acted coy.

He has called repeatedly — and properly — for a comprehensive immigration bill, which is shorthand for a measure that would do more than build the electrified fence from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific that many of Bush's fellow Republicans seem to favor.

Bush has signaled support for a balanced bill that has been crafted by a bipartisan group of senators, some of whom were at the White House session on Tuesday.

The measure combines stiffened border enforcement with the prospect of citizenship, after an 11-year wait, for illegal immigrants who meet a number of qualifications, including English proficiency, passing a background check and paying a fine.

That approach "makes sense," Bush said in California, without really committing to such a proposal.

Even on his own call for a temporary guest worker program, Bush is maddeningly unspecific, saying, "The definition of temporary will be decided in the halls of Congress."

If Bush's approach is intended not to rile anti-immigration forces within his own party, it's not working.